Holiday reading is such an important matter isn't it? Not being sure that the 8 books I'd packed into my luggage would offer sufficient variety, I bought another 4 books in WH Smith at Gatwick airport.
Today I'm reading "Sway: the irresistible pull of irrational behaviour" by Ori & Rom Brafman. Very much in the model of Gladwell's "Blink", or indeed "Freakonomics", the book examines, in essence, how we are well equipped to make 2+2=4 but sometimes opt to answer 5 instead. The book is interesting too on a personal level, examining how we often choose to make irrational (or downright stupid) choices, diregarding information - that is glaringly spellbindingly death-defyingly obvious but not what we want to believe - in the process. Of course the book never calls our irrational choices stupid. It's far too politely scientific for that - although that is what it means.
Poolside conversations inevitably turn to a critical examination of one's fellow holidaymakers. The variety of body shapes and sizes available for perusal - not to mention the eclectic selection of tattoos, piercings and swimwear - make this a sport with great entertainment potential. One's overly harsh observations, however, tend to be a little reined in by the sure and certain knowledge that others are considering you in exactly the same way. My ego does not probably want to hear the analysis of a 40 year old blonde woman with badly shaved legs and wonkily painted toes who alternates between scribbling in a pink paged notebook and reading a lime green book on economics & philosophy whilst sitting next to a swimming pool drinking endless coffee.
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